


Blooming

by dollsome



Category: Robin Hood (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-16
Updated: 2011-08-16
Packaged: 2017-10-22 16:56:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/240307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollsome/pseuds/dollsome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At last, spring comes; when Sir Guy asks her to accompany him on a walk, she can come up with no good excuse not to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blooming

At last, spring comes; when Sir Guy asks her to accompany him on a walk, she can come up with no good excuse not to. It goes without saying that his company has not improved. He is awkward and looming as ever. Still, there is dirt and grass beneath her feet instead of the crunching of snow. The air is brisk, but there is the promise of eventual warmth to it. They run out of things to say after the routine, unimaginative exchange of words has occurred. She does not strain herself to fill the silence; she wants nothing of him, after all, and so this seems fair. Marian knows how to be coy and lovely when the matter calls for it, but she sees no reason why this one ought to. She is the former sheriff’s daughter, pretty and bright, just outspoken enough that it must seem an attractive notion to tame her. There is nothing complicated or flattering about his interest. It makes perfect sense, and, really, has nothing to do with her at all.

If he weren’t so grotesque, she thinks sometimes that she would pity Sir Guy. How dreadful it must be to be like him, forever unquestioning, forever cruel, wanting things only because he has been taught that getting them is all that matters in the world.

Still, when she quickens her pace, he matches her step. For some reason, she had not expected it. He seems so much more the type to try to slow her down.

They come across a flower – the first flower, maybe – creeping out of a patch of still-brown grass. It is a pathetic thing, all wisp and whiteness, petals bent in drooping supplication to a sun that will not give more than harsh disinterested light for another fortnight at least. Warmth is a long way off yet. Marian likes the flower at once; it summons in her a simple, soft, girlish feeling that she’d all but forgotten.

“Oh, look,” she says, unthinking.

She glances at Sir Guy without much interest, only because he is there beside her and it’s natural to do it. One of his gloved hands makes the slightest movement forward. There is a particular something in his expression, a quality very thoughtful and almost childish.

He means, Marian realizes, to pick the flower and give it to her.

She thinks (not meaning to, not wanting to, for she has cut him cleanly out of her heart) of Robin. Robin of Locksley has picked her so many flowers in her life that one could fill rooms with them, fill whole houses. Always it was such easy business, with his laughing eyes and trickster’s grin, his movements sly and joyful as water. He could pull a flower from the ground and tuck it behind her ear before she so much as blinked. For his every maddening quality, Robin had – at the heart of things – always charmed her effortlessly, utterly.

Guy’s hand twitches once, and falls back to his side.

“Yes?” His voice is even gruffer than usual. Marian understands; it is a surprising feeling. “What of it?”

“I hadn’t expected,” she replies, keeping her own tones light and neutral, “to see something in bloom so soon.”

He does not answer in words – only offers a grunt, a nothing.

They move along, leaving the flower to fend for itself, imploring to the vast and unfeeling sun. Guy looks back once, distractedly, over his shoulder. Marian wonders what he is thinking of: she imagines herself as he must see her, quieter and more easily charmed, without the hard edges that have begun lately to feel so much more like the essence of her than anything else. Perhaps in his head, he hands her the flower with some unimportant remark spoken softly, smilingly (could he be capable of smiling?); perhaps, in taking it, their fingers brush.

Out of the corner of her eye, she considers one of his gloved hands. Tension looks to live even in his fingers. For the very first time, for the briefest of flickers, there is a feeling in her heart toward him; an accidental misguided thing, not unlike melting.

 


End file.
